The Compact Disk Revolution

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The Compact Disk Revolution

The use of computers was challenged, until recently, by a simple yet seemingly insurmountable problem: the transmission of data between one fixed hard drive and another. Traditional methods, such as floppy and ZIP disks, have extremely limited capacity. These are appropriate only for smaller documents and files. They are also fragile and prone to data corruption, notably I/O (input-output) errors. These flaws make them inappropriate for the transfer of large--or important--files. Removable memory drives have the opposite problem--they, in a sense, are `overkill.' That is, they can hold massive amounts of data, but are large, expensive, and very fragile. Both disks and memory drives must be formatted to a specific computer manufacturer's specifications: a 3.5in floppy disk, formatted to IBM standards, is unreadable to an Apple machine. The development of the compact disc solved the problems of storage capacity and transferability of data (Downs 129) .

In 1969, Klass Compaan, a Dutch physicist, devised the idea of an optical storage device to replace dated methods in use at the time. He did not include any technical specifications, however; his idea was merely a theory. During the early 1970's, Compaan and Peter Kramer, both working for the Phillips division of Royal Phillips Electronics, Inc., teamed together to further the development of what would become the compact disc. In 1970, they produced a glass prototype of the disc itself. However, they determined a laser would be necessary to read the data on the surface. In 1974, they completed work on a working, color (opaque) prototype. At the Tokyo Audio Fair in 1977, Mitsubishi, Hitachi, and Sony highlighted their own efforts in optical storage te...

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...d.htm/printable">http://computer.howstuffworks.com/cd.htm/printable

D'Ambrise, Richard. "A Closer Look at DVD." Demystifying Digital Versatile Disk. 1997. Maxwell Corporation of America/CD-Info Company. 28 Dec. 2005.

http://www.cd-info.com/CDIC/Technology/DVD/dvd

Downs, Timothy Edward, and Ronald White. How Computers Work. Indianapolis: Que Corporation, 2002.

Despain, Jeremy. History of CD Technology. 1999. One-Off, Inc. 27 Dec. 2005. http://www.oneoffcd.com/info/historycd.cfm

DVD Technical Guide. 5 Apr. 2005. Pioneer Corporation. 28 Dec. 2005. http://www.pioneer.co.jp/crdl/tech/index-e

Pohlmann, Ken C. The Compact Disc Handbook, 2nd Edition. Middleton: A-R Editions, 1992.

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